Get out your beltway dictionaries. It’s time to translate Feith-based intelligence from Pentagonese to plain English. A long delayed three year internal Pentagon review has determined that Douglas Feith orchestrated the deliberate and systematic corruption of pre-war intelligence. As a consequence, the Pentagon's inspector general has rendered the verdict that Feith’s conduct was ‘inappropriate’ but ‘authorized’ and ‘legal.’

An indignant Feith was quick to take exception to the Inspector’s finding. He defended his record of falsifying intelligence as ‘good government.’ The unrepentant Likudnik was quoted as saying "I disagree with the inspector general's opinions here mainly because, if heeded, they would discourage policy officials from asking tough questions about the quality of CIA work." Even in Pentagonese – that spells Chutzpah.

Never mind that Feith’s doctored intelligence was used to coerce the American public into supporting the invasion of a country that posed no threat to the United States. Four years on, the occupation of our Iraqi colony continues to claim a hundred souls a day at a cost of two billion dollars a week. Regardless, by Pentagon standards, there was nothing ‘illegal’ about the conspiracy to bamboozle a traumatized post-911 America into believing that Iraq was responsible for the atrocities at the World Trade Center.

Let’s begin with the inspector general’s assessment of Feith’s ‘inappropriate’ activities. "The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers. While such actions were not illegal or unauthorized, the actions were, in our opinion, inappropriate given that the intelligence assessments were intelligence products and did not clearly show the various with the consensus of the Intelligence Community. This condition occurred because of an expanded role and mission of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from policy formulation to alternative intelligence analysis and dissemination. As a result, the Office of the Undersecretary for Defense Policy did not provide 'the most accurate analysis of intelligence' to senior decision-makers."

Only Washington can make a crime of this magnitude sound like a clerical error.

Here is a simple translation. Feith set up a rogue operation in the
Pentagon – the Office of Special Plans - to debunk the CIA’s
determination that Iraq had nothing to do with the atrocities of 9/11.
The OSP cooked up “alternative intelligence” to make a case that Saddam
had a “mature symbiotic relationship” with Osama Bin Laden. The OSP
also concocted and then leaked WMD canards to their neo-con pals in
high media places. But it was all authorized. End of story.

Just for the record, federal law specifically prohibits intelligence
operatives from waging a propaganda campaign against American citizens.
So, regardless of who authorized Feith and the OSP to cherry pick
intelligence, there was nothing legal about misleading the American
public to make a case for war. The Pentagon might be entitled to its
own dictionary but we still operate the republic with a single set of
law books that apply to one and all.

Besides, who exactly authorized ‘the expansion of the role and mission
of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy’ – an
expansion that gave Feith and his OSP crew a license to manufacture and
disseminate lies to market a brutal conflict that never had to happen?
Was it Paul Wolfowitz - Feith’s immediate supervisor? Or did Feith get
his marching orders directly from Donald Rumsfeld – his only other
superior at the Department of Defense? More likely, the canard assembly
line at the OSP was established on the strength of a White House edict.
Only Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Bush were legally entitled to authorize
Feith to set up and fund the OSP.

Let’s be very clear. Cheney had no authority to order the Department of
Defense to do anything without Bush’s explicit approval. Of course,
there remains the question of exactly how much power Cheney usurped
from George Bush. If it turns out that the OSP was ‘authorized’ by
Cheney - the President of Vice and Torture - then Feith’s criminal
activities were neither legal nor authorized.

Is it even plausible that Wolfowitz would give Feith a green light to
tamper with intelligence without getting clearance from Rumsfeld? Does
that explain the timing of Rumsfeld’s resignation – a few minutes after
he realized that Senator Carl Levin would be the new chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee? It’s worth remembering that it took an
inquiry by Levin to force the OSP/Feith investigation.

When all was said and done, the whole Feith affair faded from the news
very quickly and for very good reasons. The MSM lads will tell you that
the public is uninterested in who corrupted intelligence. After all,
Americans have their priorities and their attention was focused on Anna
Nicole’s early demise.

You can’t really blame the MSM crowd for their reluctance to follow up
on the Pentagon’s report. Wasn’t it the combined efforts of the OSP and
the mass media barons that gave urgency to the task of bombing Iraq
into the stone ages? How many young American soldiers went into battle
in the firm belief that they were righteously avenging the slaughter of
9/11? Even senior officers were astounded when they failed to locate
the phantom WMD stockpiles promised by Feith and his neo-con cabal.

The ‘journalists’ who toil for the military/industrial/infotainment
complex aren’t about to expose their role in the Feith affair. There is
no arguing that the lords of the press played a pivotal role in
disseminating the garbage produced by the OSP. Feith’s mission could
not have been accomplished without the active collaboration of the
cabal of Judith Miller clones at the New York Times. At the Washington
Post and the Wall Street Journal, no effort was spared in the quest to
spread the WMD canards to all four corners of the republic.

Feith’s deadly brew had to be force fed to the nation by the
Murdoch-rats at FOX. This unilateral war of aggression was vigorously
championed in Wolf Blitzer’s ‘war room’ which has since been converted
into the ‘situation room.’ Maybe the CNN folks fail to see the irony
that we got ourselves into this ‘situation’ in large part because they
surrendered their ‘war room’ to the neo-con cabal. The net result of
this media juggernaut was the suppression of any dissent that
challenged the pre-war talking points provided by the administration
and reinforced by Feith’s ‘alternative intelligence.’

Not surprisingly, Bush didn’t even bother to make a public statement
about the Feith affair. And the MSM folks were kind enough not to
bother him with pesky questions.

Which leaves us no other alternatives but to do their work for them?

Mister President, were you ignorant enough to actually believe that
Saddam had a “mature symbiotic relationship” with Osama Bin Laden? Did
Douglas Feith fool you or did you authorize him to fool us? Now that
you know all about Feith’s mischief, would you have gone to war if you
had relied on the consensus views of the mainstream intelligence
community? Do you think Feith acted on his own initiative? Was he part
of a conspiracy that included other members of your administration?
Were you responsible for coordinating that conspiracy?

One can infer from the report that Feith’s illicit conduct was
authorized by Paul Wolfowitz? Was Rumsfeld unaware of the boiler room
operation in the basement of the Pentagon that was tasked with
disrupting the normal flow of credible intelligence? Was Cheney
involved? Is that why the Vice President got bent out of shape and
started the smear campaign against Valerie Plame and Ambassador Joseph
Wilson? Were Libby and Rove ordered to do what was necessary to cover
up for Feith’s Office of Special Plans - the original source of the
fictional yellow cake uranium?

Did you authorize Cheney or Rumsfeld to participate in a conspiracy to
defraud the American people and lead them into a disastrous war of
choice? Did your neo-con praetorian guards take you for a ride or did
you order them to launch the campaign of deception that has resulted in
the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history? Mister
President, were you the leader of this conspiracy or are you just an
innocent fool? In either case, have you considered early retirement and
where do you want us to mail your last check?

Not a single Senator or MSM charlatan dared to air these questions.
Still, our impertinent president was gracious enough to give them a
partial answer.

A few days later, he showed up at the American Enterprise Institute
(AEI) – the outfit that lent him the talented Douglas Feith. As usual,
the decider-in-chief was ‘appreciating’ something or the other. After
six years of serial blunders attributed to his neo-con advisers, he
gave the AEI crowd a personal assessment of the performance of their
‘scholars.’

This is how he acknowledged the work of Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz
and Cheney. “I appreciate the chance to come and share some thoughts
with the men and women of AEI. I admire AEI a lot--I'm sure you know
that. After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best
people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration. A
few have returned to the fold--you'll have to wait two more years to
get another one to return to the fold. Dick Cheney is occupied. He
sends his best.” Translation from Pentagonese – “I applaud Douglas
Feith and the neo-cons for the valuable contribution they made to the
campaign of deception that allowed me the imperial luxury of invading
Iraq. Do you have another Feith to lend me because I’m coasting on a
wing and a prayer and I have this inappropriate itch to fly on and bomb
Iran?”